


The Cookie Test

by vifetoile



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Baking, Christmas, Cookies, F/M, Fluff, Human Wheatley, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 17:16:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5464583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vifetoile/pseuds/vifetoile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chell bakes cookies, listens to Wheatley, and thinks about life, love, and recipes. Written for tumblr's Portal Secret Santa 2013.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cookie Test

Chell had made cookies before, but usually from a mix, or from dough sold chilled. But Wheatley had been begging her to make cookies like what they saw on the cover of the magazine – elaborate, beautiful, festive, decorative – so, for the holidays, Chell decided she would try. She bought the magazine, and studied their instructions to the letter, and followed each step carefully.

(All-purpose flour, sift it so that it’s not tough; add unsweetened cocoa, powdered ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, three quarters of a _teaspoon_ , not a tablespoon, but a _teaspoon_ , of baking soda…)

Chell liked recipes. Despite her time in the Enrichment Center, she still enjoyed having an ordered list of what to do, precise instructions, a timeframe, and a list of ingredients – at least, when it came to preparing food. After the hunger in the vast grey caverns, she wouldn’t take food for granted ever again. And baking was the most scientific of all cooking arts – these cookies could be ruined if she put in a tablespoon, rather than a teaspoon, of baking soda, or even seized the baking powder instead, without looking, in a careless moment.

This is why she did not allow Wheatley to help.

(Combine the dry ingredients; cream the butter and sugar together in a separate bowl, add molasses, add dry ingredients. Knead the dough gently, chill in the refrigerator.)

Chell cleaned up while the dough chilled. From outside she heard Wheatley huffing and puffing as he shoveled snow away from the front walk, grumbling occasionally about fidgety wrists or cold sensitive fingers, you never had to deal with muddles like that when you were a core, no-sir-ee.

(When the dough is firm, take it out of the refrigerator. roll it out flat, and cut out shapes. Stars. Trees. Ornaments. Not reindeer; their little legs and antlers burn up. A small batch of careful snowflakes, sugar cookies prepared yesterday.

Bake in the oven at three hundred and fifty degrees, turn the cookies around when they’re halfway through, and take a cup of coffee while they bake. Ruminate on your life.)

She sipped her coffee, letting the precise patterns of her thoughts fade away, dissolve like sifted flour. Wheatley was still keeping up his half-joking litany of laments against the cold. No – she listened more closely. He had stopped to talk to one of their neighbors, and had gotten caught up in relating some yarn about what had happened when he got the milk. He might finish shoveling the snow by dark. Then again, maybe he might not.

The life that Chell and Wheatley had made together was precarious, in her eyes. There was so much waiting to go wrong, at the first opportunity, and it looked to her like she was the one to take care of it, always with the precision of a baker.

Wheatley’s voice grew alarmed – “Oy, mate! I’ve got this whole walk to finish up – Chell asked me special, you know? Gotta dash – gotta shovel, that is, gotta shovel!” The air then filled with the crescendoing sound of snow zooming through the air in frenzied flurries.

Wheatley’s affection for her – oh, Chell, be honest, say _love_ , his love for her – was ill-disciplined, imprecise, and loud. He didn’t fit into the organized life she’d led before he came along; his very arrival had been unforeseeable and strange.

(Check to see that your cookies have baked long enough, but be careful – their color will make it harder to tell, with the gingerbread.

Take them out of the oven, let them cool, and decorate.)

Chell took out her readymade frosting, in several bowls according to size, from the fridge. She lined up the sprinkles in their bowls, took out the different pipes and tubes and knives. She heard Wheatley say, from the front door, “Neighbor needs a hand with his tree – I’ll help him out, shouldn’t be a minute, be back soon!”

There was a silence, and a chill breeze, and then a scramble, a shout of “SORRY!” and then Chell heard the front door close.

She smiled, and had to quash a spasm of annoyance. She focused on the frosting. Just the right amount on the knife – spread on the cookies so that each edge was perfect, and even… one cookie was perfect, then the next would be perfect, and the next, and the next. All the little trees were green, and all the little ornaments were red, and all the little stars were bright yellow, and she pushed the sprinkles into each one carefully, with just the right amount of pressure.

Some days, she honestly wasn’t even sure if she loved Wheatley. She could get so mad at him, irritated at him over the slightest things. There wasn’t that warm, fuzzy, gooshy feeling she thought people in love were supposed to feel… she didn’t overflow with forgiveness, she wasn’t preoccupied with him every waking minute, she wasn’t sure that she would push him out of the way of a speeding train… well, with Wheatley you never knew, his instincts might kick in at the last minute and gift him with brief, Olympian abilities…

Even here, the cookies she was making for him were orderly and passionless. They looked just like the ones on the magazine cover – better, even. Every sprinkle was in place, there was always the perfect amount of frosting, and each frosting was the perfect color. She was testing herself against what the magazine made, and she was winning, and that gave her satisfaction.

Testing herself.

With _cookies_.

What was wrong with her?

She put down the frosting knife and leaned against the counter, stymied, unsure where to think next.

The front door opened and shut again. “I’m home!” She heard Wheatley hanging up his coat, his scarf, and scraping off his snow-covered boots. He entered the kitchen, smelling a little like pine sap. “What a nightmare that tree was, I tell you, it had it in for me – wait, what’s this?” He stopped and stared. “Are these the cookies?”

Chell nodded at the inane question.

“Oh, _wow_ , Chell, just, just _wow!_ You’re amazing! These are perfect! They’re splendid, Chell! We should have a party just to show these off – we should keep these cookies in a glass case, they’re just too perfect to eat! You’re the most amazing – _mmph!_ ”

Chell grinned when he started to talk, and grinned a little further, and took up a perfect, white-and-blue snowflake cookie, reached up, and shoved it unceremoniously into his mouth. He protested at first having to eat her art, but then his stern expression melted as he chewed and swallowed.

“Oh, wow, they taste _even better_! How do you even do that? You’re so marvelous!” He leaned back, out of words for at least a few seconds, his blue eyes expressive as the rest of him: ‘ _How did I ever deserve someone as marvelous as you_?’

Chell beamed, feeling suddenly flustered. The ruminations of her life fell quiet as she stood up on tiptoe and kissed him. He kissed her back, tasting like cookie crumbs and winter air. When they broke up, he demolished the peaceful moment by saying, “And I mean it about that party, did you want to feed an army here? We could!”

He broke up the peace and brought in something she liked even better. And listening to his voice wash over her, she felt such joy and warmth, such simple delight, that it seemed to crystallize in a voice inside her, repeating simply, ‘ _Yes, this is love, this is what love is, yes, this is it._ ’


End file.
